What do you consider to be the most important things you can do in a muffin recipe to make it have a good crumb? It's not supposed to be too cakey, but the ones I've been making so far are denser than I like them. Randomly, the last ones I had from the place near work were the *best* I've had from there. I really want to know who their baker is.

This is the blueberry muffin recipe I make a lot. It's easy and everyone seems to like it. I usually do a double batch and use 2.5 cups of blueberries instead of 2 because that's how much comes in the frozen bag.

Preheat oven to 425

1/2 c. uncooked oatmeal, not instant
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 c. orange juice
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. oil
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1 c. blueberries

First mix the oatmeal and juice together in a large bowl. Then combine the flour, sugar, powder and soda in a smaller bowl. Add the egg and oil to the oatmeal mixture and stir. Add the flour mixture to this and mix by hand until everything is moist. (You will have some lumps.) Carefully mix in berries. Fill cupcake pans (lined with paper liners) 1/2 full. Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 12 - 18 muffins.

What components of the recipe cause the fluffiness? I'm not looking for a muffin recipe, since I already know the flavour profile I'm looking for--I just want to know what ingredients switched around would get me a less dense crumb.

I am going to try baking soda, less blending, and oil instead of butter next time (probably tomorrow, considering).

ita, I've been thinking on this. I don't think you want to process less -- rather cream the egg/sugar/whatever MORE -- make it airier -- then add the flour and process less.

Or cake flour?

The muffins aren't made with a cakey recipe. There's no creaming step. It's pour liquid into well of dry, fold as little as possible.

I'm thinking at least switching in oil instead of butter will help them keep a better texture cold.

I am so fucking vendor frustrated right now. I didn't actually go to sleep, because I had changes from midnight to 1:30, and then possibly at 4. At least the midnight stuff ended on time, but the second batch of tasks hasn't even started yet.

Cook's Illustrated must have dealt with muffins, mustn't they?

Oil is definitely better than butter for keeping texture, and you need more oil if you are not eating them right away. As an example, my blueberry muffin recipe calls for 4-8 tablespoons of oil, depending on when you plan to eat them.

The other thing I would check is whether your leavening agent is fresh. Baking soda that's been in a open box for a year does not have the oomph of a fresh box.

If you've got heavy ingredients, though (by which I mean wheat flour, germ, brown sugar, etc.), the muffins are never going to be as light as muffins with white flour and white sugar.

Timelies all!

Only muffins I ever made were out of a box(and kosher-for-Passover), so I have no advice, sorry.

I, too, have no muffin wisdom to impart.

Kat, I am *thoroughly* jealous of Noah, as the parent of a 6-year-old who's... not there yet is putting it mildly. A couple of months ago Matilda set herself the task of writing out all the numbers from 1 to 1000; she's currently at 220 because once she got up to 3 digits it all just got lost, and she can see no reason at all why any number follows any other number, ever. I know she's a smart kid and a good pattern-recognizer, but in her mind numbers are just this big giant blank without rules, rhyme or reason.

eta: And the end result of the struggle is that *I* feel incredibly stupid, like her mathless brain is my fault or I'm clearly the worst teacher in the history of ever, because if she doesn't get the concept it's all on me.

It's not all on you, JZ. Grace is lost on math and patterns and the rest...something just clicked for Noah. With Grace, I sometimes wonder if it's just willful uncaring on her part. Like we had to draw out AB patterns with Grace and she screwed it up. But I wonder if she screwed it up on purpose.